The media has a vital role to play in ensuring fairness in asylum debate

by Rónán Mullen     © Irish Examiner    26/02/02

LAST night, RTE screened the second episode of Fortress Europe, a three-part series about Europe's human traffic. Edited by RTE's Europe Correspondent Sean Whelan, the series highlights the flow of immigrant people into Europe and sets out to challenge the "I'm not a racist, but..." mentality currently existing in Ireland.

The series is timely. There are no legal immigration channels into Ireland, so the poorest of the poor must do one of two things: apply for status as an asylum-seeker fleeing persecution or have a child in Ireland and get residency on that basis. And the consequences can be tragic. Just a week ago, a Nigerian woman, desperate to get Irish citizenship for her child, arrived in Ireland only to die in childbirth.

As we approach a general election, debate is intensifying about Ireland's unique citizenship rules - we are the only country in Europe that awards citizenship by birth and the State generally grants the parents of these citizens residency. About one-in-five births in Dublin's Rotunda Hospital last year were to non-nationals and the figure was one in 10 in the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street. Last year 2,474 asylum seekers were granted leave to remain in Ireland on the basis that they were the parents of Irish-born children. This is up from 909 in 2000 and 1,227 in 1999. Refugee lobby groups are worried. They warn against the scapegoating of all asylum seekers in the run-up to the general election. And the UNHCR's representative in Ireland has called for a constructive debate on the citizenship issue, saying it must not be confused with the general issue of asylum for people fleeing persecution.

The media's role in refereeing this debate will be crucial. Last weekend, French academic Jean-Pierre Tailleur addressed the Cleraun Media Conference on the subject of Coverage of Conflict. His speech had much to say to an Ireland that is still at the early stages of immigration and the task of integrating thousands of European and non-European people into our society. Tailleur told the conference how respected French reporters and newspapers failed to assess the "poor degree of integration among many North African immigrants and their families" with negative consequences for public attitudes to race issues.

Last October, a soccer tie between France and Algeria was disrupted when French descendants of North African immigrants, known in France as the beurs, booed the French National Anthem. French Government Ministers, including Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, feigned ignorance of what was happening, even while many Algerian supporters were chanting the name of Osama Bin Laden. The match was discontinued with 15 minutes remaining after 200 of the beurs staged a pitch invasion. The incident was a far cry from the jubilant scenes on the Champs Elysees in July 1998 when the French soccer team, lead by second generation Algerian Zinedine Zidane, claimed the World Cup for the first time.

On that night, France's young Arabs were the noisiest in their celebrations. And, because the French soccer team was mostly composed of players linked to foreign colonies, the event was invested with huge significance. The team, their victory and the celebrations were seen as symbolic of a France composed of many nationalities, successfully integrated with each other.

But the Champs Elysees celebrations fed complacency about the problem. According to Tailleur there have been "two decades of rampant misinformation on the true state of integration of North African immigrants". The media fell into one of two opposing traps - sensationalism or political correctness. On the sensationalist side, you had newspapers like Paris-Match, purporting to do a 24-page investigation of immigration, but in fact distorting testimonies and photographs in an effort to portray suburbs populated by immigrants as near war-zones. But more politically correct media also contributed to the problem by avoiding tough coverage of the problems faced by the beurs, including fundamentalist Islamic practices and community violence.

French media over-emphasised the success of a small number of North African descendants, like actress Isabelle Adjani or soccer star Zidane, but downplayed problematic behaviour among immigrant males. Journalists focused on discrimination against immigrants isolated in low-rent buildings and ghettoes, but failed to document signs of sectarianism and racism among the immigrant communities themselves. Since the beginning of the second Palestinian intifada in autumn 2000, scores of attacks have taken place on the French-Jewish community, but the mainstream newspapers waited nearly a year before reporting it properly. Tailleur believes this "opened the way for some political parties to promote drastic, unrealistic and unacceptable measures against foreigners living in France".

In the wake of the Noel O'Flynn affair, the message should not be lost on us in Ireland. We need a media that is tough on racism but open-minded in its analysis of immigration. It's not enough for Irish journalists to take a high moral tone when politicians utter vote-catching sentiments or to call for deselection of such candidates. This approach only risks driving the muttering about immigration underground. Instead, the media must invest heavily in its coverage of immigration issues. At the moment, a lot of coverage of asylum seekers tends to centre on conflict and problems - thus reinforcing in the public mind the notion that immigrants are trouble.

Instead, the media needs to lead the debate on how to manage the influx of asylum-seekers and migrant workers, how to integrate them successfully. That is why the Fortress Europe series is so welcome. One of its interviewees, Fr John Dardis, director of Jesuit Refugee Services, Europe, believes there is need for a Europe-wide harmonisation of the definition of refugees.

"Among EU countries, France and Germany are the only two countries that don't accept that persecution by a non-state agent qualifies you for refugee status. This creates an anomalous situation for asylum seekers who might be able to gain refugee status in one country whereas they would be refused it in another."
This country should avoid the simplistic distinction between deserving asylum-seekers and undeserving economic migrants. The reasons for poverty and starvation often come down to persecution. People don't leave their homes and risk their lives for any reason. We can also do without the Australian model for dealing with asylum seekers. Australia places the burden on its neighbouring countries to process asylum requests, rather than admit them to its shores.

The Jesuit Refugee Service is one organisation which believes that hard-line immigration policies will not stem the tide of people desperate to make it into developed countries. Instead, western governments must attack the root causes of migration - poverty, regional conflicts and human rights abuses - and increase overseas development aid (ODA) contributions.